


Christmas Trees and Peppermint Free

by SunnyDonna



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Bored Sherlock, Christmas, Established Relationship, Established Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Fluff, John is a Saint, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Romance, Winterlock, peppermint tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-20
Updated: 2014-01-20
Packaged: 2018-01-09 10:55:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1145136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunnyDonna/pseuds/SunnyDonna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is putting up the Christmas Tree to celebrate the first Christmas at Baker's Street. It's all going well until Sherlock takes over. </p>
<p>Winterlock Exchange fic</p>
            </blockquote>





	Christmas Trees and Peppermint Free

**Author's Note:**

> This is for ineedasherlock for the winterlock exchange. Like, a month after Christmas. 
> 
> .... :/ 
> 
> Sorry about the delay! At least it'll bring back the memories :)

 

“Christmas,” came Sherlock's droll tone, “Is boring John.”

John sighed, as he put down the second ornament of the rather cheap tree he'd been trying all morning to decorate. Sherlock, predictably, hadn't endeavoured to help much. In fact, he'd gone out of his way to prove how boring the entire celebration was.

“It's Christmas Sherlock,” said John, rolling his eyes and wondering if this was how the little people in that Dr. Seuss novel had felt when the Grinch was around, “I'm putting up a tree. And stockings. And tinsel. Don't you at least want to _try_ getting into the Christmas spirit?”

“The spirit of Christmas indeed,” snorted Sherlock, leaning back in his armchair, crossing his bony and spidery fingers over his lap. John turned to face the man, and grimaced at the way Sherlock was behaving. His first Christmas in Baker Street, and Sherlock's mood had to be – _this_. Granted, Christmas time at the Watson household had never been one of those particularly cheerful moments of life, but this was a new start for John Watson. And he was going to enjoy Christmas no matter bloody what.

Instead of indulging Sherlock's mood, John did the sensible thing any human being would do. He turned around and set about adding ornaments to the tree. It was a sparse, petty little thing John had picked up on a whim as he left Tesco. The tree had been hanging around at the front. It was a bit smaller than the rest, and had a rather shoddy set of branches to it's left. As though something had attacked it.

But it had character.

And so, John went about, adding the third ornament. It was a silver oval-thing, like those round ornaments but a bit squashed and flat. He'd have to Google the name of the shape later on. In addition to the mysterious silver thing was a gold round ball, about the size of a fist really, as it hung from the middle, and a cheerful looking Santa decked out in red and white.

“Aren't crime rates supposed to go up during the holidays?” muttered Sherlock, though, a mutter for Sherlock was really just a loud yell as he stood up, flailing his arms about and not doing anything to discourage the idea that he looked like some sort of large white insect. A pest really. Something being rather annoying while others tried to celebrate Christmas and all the good things that came with it.

“Have you tried texting Lestrade?” asked John, being rather sensible about the entire thing, if anyone were to ask.

“Of course I have,” said Sherlock, aiming a heavy glare at the man in the rather ridiculously ugly jumper with the reindeer running around his chest and arms like he was a seven year old boy instead of a grown army veteran, “He's apparently celebrating with his children. Why on earth would anyone want to do that when a possibly lovely murder could be going on?”

John paused, staring at the rather ugly icicle ornament that Harry had sent over. For the second time today, John wondered if Harry had decided to foist off all the awful looking things to him. Then he remembered that Sherlock was raving behind him. For the sake of Christmas, John decided to let that little remark go. After all, tis the season and what not.

“What about your private clients? Any one of them needing anything?” asked John, hanging the icicle towards the back.

“Only the boring ones,” muttered Sherlock, again with all the dramatic air of a prima donna as he began to pace. John was rather glad he'd hidden his gun in the stockings this time. The cheap red velvet was something Sherlock abhorred, and he'd probably not look there until tomorrow.

“Surely someone needs help,” said John easily, as he strung up a reindeer ornament that had a flashing red nose that was slightly broken and thus blinked five times very fast before going off for a few minutes.

Finally, Sherlock stopped raving, and began to stare at the tree. John could feel those eery grey eyes staring at him from all the way over there. The blonde man frowned, and turned to see Sherlock regarding the tree.

“What on earth possessed you to pick up such ugly thing?” he said, narrowing his eyes at the tree.

“What, the tree? It's not that bad,” asked John, when the staring contest lead no where, and he plucked out a rather ridiculous, fluffy ornament that was supposed to be a cheerful dog at one point.

“Not the tree, the ornaments!” growled Sherlock, “Oh. Harry foisted those things off on you since she can't be bothered to throw them out. Sentiment. Probably things Clara bought. They made a sport of decorating ugly trees and wearing ugly jumpers.”

“It's not ugly!” came John's feeble reply, not bothering to ask how Sherlock had picked up on such a detail. It was best to just realize that Sherlock was always going to know everything about him based on the way he stood, and that was never going to change.

“If that thing stays, you can't put those things on it,” said Sherlock with all the snobbery of, well, Sherlock.

“The tree is staying,” argued John.

“Then we're buying new ornaments.”

* * *

 

That's how John found himself in the middle of Selfridges, staring at ornaments that Sherlock deemed dull and boring. He felt rather ridiculous, holding a plain set of silver orbs (that glowed in the dark!), a dog wearing a Santa hat, and a set of lights that Sherlock had commented were dull and would need to be fixed.

It was going to be a long day indeed.

* * *

 

When they got home, Sherlock had robbed John of his tree. The bulbs on the stringy lights were replaced with black-lights, so that Sherlock's ornaments decorated in linseed oil could glow. Unfortunately, the ornaments were filled with the random drivel that Sherlock used for cases. John had hung up a fuzzy candy-cane, a snowman that had a bit of a crooked nose, and a ginger-bread man to Sherlock's glowing set of ornaments.

Their tree was an epileptic's nightmare.

“Much better,” crowed Sherlock, looking like a proud parent.

And then he flopped back onto the couch with a pout as John went to make tea. He'd found this lovely new peppermint based tea for Christmas.

“Bored!” yelled Sherlock, as John placed the tea-bags into the cup, not having the energy to properly steep the tea in the pot.

When he returned, Sherlock had turned the lights off and closed the curtains. The tree was glowing brightly in the corner of the room. The eerily decorated faces on the linseed oil and the glow-in-the-dark ornaments were hovering. It was sort of creepy. If they had a Christmas party John would have to change the lights on that tree.

“What sort of experiment is this?” asked John, as he laid Sherlock's cup beside the arrogant sod who ignored it entirely.

Too bad. It was rather sweet, with a refreshing consistency vaguely like toothpaste. Alright, so it was rubbish. But it was expensive rubbish that had to be cherished.

“I'm testing the consistency of the linseed oil. How long it will last,” said Sherlock easily.

John nodded, sipping his tea as he stared at the oddly lit Christmas tree in the darkness of their living room.

“It's rather pretty,” conceded John with a nod.

“Yes, it rather is,” came the reply.

It startled John, and he turned to see Sherlock's bright eyes, focused intently on John's face. The older man went pink at the gaze, suddenly reminded of the first time he'd hung up mistletoe and Sherlock had cornered him under it. After that, the mistletoe had to go down, because the detective had decided to play the game of how many times he could get John under the tree.

It was probably silly of him, mused John, as Sherlock moved to hover over him, hand on John's cheek and legs around his thighs, engulfing him in a mass of silk and velvet and other expensive-sounding fabric and _curls_ , dark curls that John's hand was unable to resist. Then there were tongues, and John groaned as Sherlock took advantage of the situation, that warm wet and slippery appendage diving between John's teeth and sucking away at his soul.

The younger man pulled away first, and glared at John.

“That tea is disgusting,” said Sherlock sniffily, flopping off of a red-faced John who gaped after Sherlock.

“Right,” groaned John, and resigned himself to a lost snog session.

* * *

 

When Christmas day came, John had left the present for Sherlock under the tree. He had sneaked off in Selfridges to buy it for the man, while Sherlock deduced the life out of the incompetent salesman who had nearly cried by the time Sherlock was through with him.

John hovered as Sherlock meticulously unwrapped it, deducing the entire way.

“Gold paper, suggests expense. You paid for someone to wrap it, possibly at the store. Selfridges judging from this audacious wrapping paper that I saw you eyeing as we walked inside. The box suggests clothing, but it's too large to be one shirt. Most likely two. You bought them at Selfridges, after internal debate about buying me something more expensive, but then resigned to the fact that I'd most likely to destroy them and it was better to buy me something cheap and durable before I ruined it.”

John merely hummed carols at Sherlock's correct deductions. He opened the package finally, and beamed as he lifted the two shirts, one a royal blue that suited his skin tone, and the other a festive and bright green. Sherlock didn't own many bright shirts, beyond that purple that had first caught John's eye, and these would definitely be striking.

Sherlock frowned at the bottom of the box, finding the second thing.

“Socks?” asked Sherlock, surprised, “Well, there's always something. You picked these up since the last two pairs I wore had holes, didn't you?”

He opened the dark black socks, before John opened his mouth and gave away the surprise, to reveal a bottle of amantadine, medication for the common flu.

“You bought me medication to experiment with?” asked an amused Sherlock, beaming at John.

“I assumed you'd already played with flu medication, but it's the best I can get as a locum worker, and I'm sure you'll find some way to play with it-

He was cut off again by a kiss. Sherlock moved quickly, turning the lights off and spinning John around. The eery tree with crazy designs on the ornaments had been switched, to instead read _Merry Christmas John_ , in linseed oil. John gaped in shock at the tree, as Sherlock whispered away in his ear, “Always something with you. Stealing medicine could get you fired Dr. Watson.”

It was perfectly true, of course.

What was also perfectly true was that the kisses that followed were perfectly peppermint-free.  

 


End file.
